A World Unknown
by polkadotspots
Summary: AU, AH. Bella is thrown into the world of older, sexy, wealthy Edward with an offer she can't refuse. But how far is she willing to go to get the life she wants?
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I don't own it. **

**Chapter One**

"I just don't love you, Bella."

It had to be the most horrific dumping I'd ever been on the receiving end of. And believe me, I've had a few.

However, if I was being completely honest with myself, which in all actuality doesn't happen very often, then it wasn't really a surprise. I'd seen the light gradually fade in Mike's eyes like a dying firefly. He'd began to look at me in that almost mystified way, as if actually dating me was a major let down after the months we'd spent skirting around each other and kissing hungrily as we waited for the night bus together. It was the little things which harboured the largest clues; he'd stopped holding my hand when we crossed the street, for instance. So I didn't really need to be psychic to read the signs; being dumped was really inevitable.

But I didn't expect him to do it on my birthday. In Selfridges. Right next to the new season, Bayswater Lipstick Ostrich Mulberry bag.

"You're finishing with me?" I clarified, my voice monotone-steady. "Today? On my birthday?"

Finally Mike took hold of his wandering balls and looked me in the eyes, before his gaze hastily moved away to rest on the pink bag I'd been admiring before he showed up and turned this into quite possibly the worst day ever.

I should have known better than to arrive at Selfridges all excited and hopeful that maybe, just maybe, Mike had finally got his shit together and was going to buy me some serious designer goodies as a birthday present. I wasn't fussy, I'd have settled for a key ring, or a marked down pair of gloves.

"I wasn't going to split up with you. Not today, anyway. But then, I don't know... I just saw you standing there and I couldn't do this, do us, any longer than I needed to," Mike said heavily, his shoulders slumping under his leather jacket. It was early autumn and in my opinion, still too hot for leather jackets, even if you were simply trying to be 'cool'.

I'd often wanted to tell Mike that working in his family-owned hiking shop wasn't something to aspire to in the slightest, in fact, to me, it was downright lazy. I watched with grave satisfaction as little beads of sweat suddenly appeared on Mike's pretty baby face, even though it was coolly air-conditioned in the bag department at Selfridges. That was one of the reasons why Selfridges was my happy place. There was something upmarket and civilized about the grand shop, but not so much so that I felt out of place in there. And to be fair, the rails and rails of pretty dresses and the shoes on display don't provide an altogether ugly backdrop either. Except now, Mike had truly ruined my happy place as well as my birthday. Talk about killing two birds with one stone.

"Why, why are you breaking up with me? Should I mention the fact that it's my birthday again or am I repeating myself too often? Jesus Christ, Mike, what the hell is wrong with you?" I was fully aware that my voice was verging on an extremely high pitched squeal that dogs would be lucky to hear but I think it was rather justified given the circumstances I'd found myself in.

"Bells, come on, please."

I watched in disbelief as he ran a hand through his blonde hair, his eyes scrunching up tight as if he was completely exasperated and bored of this conversation.

"I was going to wait a couple of days, but things just aren't right between us, are they?"

"Is it something I did?" I asked as I scrambled around in my Marc Jacobs bag for my Chanel sunglasses to shield my accusatory glare somewhat, and modestly hide my upset. "What did I do wrong?"

"You didn't do anything wrong, we just, I don't know, we aren't right for each other."

For someone who prided himself as being able to sell anything to anyone, he wasn't really doing a very good job at selling this break up to me. I could see that he was fumbling around, trying desperately hard to come up with an excuse.

"Your hair," he finally mumbled. "I don't like it blonde."

"You're breaking up with me because of my hair?" I returned in complete bewilderment.

I think we both knew at this point that my hair colour only had maybe one percent, if that, to do with the split. The new hair colour was meant to signify a newer, classier me, but it honestly just made my washed out skin look even paler than it usually did.

"No," Mike stalled. "Yes – God Bella, I don't know. Look, we can still go out tonight and hook up or whatever, but I just don't think you and I are really headed anywhere, so what's the point in us pretending that we are? But I did get you a birthday card – here."

He produced a creased pink envelope and held it out to me, and it was as if he'd now marked the last five minute conversation as finished, and therefore we could both just get on with our lives because it had all been sorted out, he'd said his piece.

"You're a complete arsehole," I hissed at him while my voice began to quiver traitorously with the threat of tears. "You could have picked any other day and come up with some ridiculous excuse to end this, but instead you decide to do it now, in Selfridges for fuck's sake."

"Don't make a scene, Bells." Mike returned in a shocked whisper in response to my outrage.

"I'll make a damn scene if I want to, Mike."

Mike now began to shuffle his feet as if he wanted nothing more than to run out of the revolving doors screaming, but I was nowhere near finished with him yet. I wasn't going to be satisfied until I'd shoved him square in the chest with my fists because he really fucking deserved it. So I did just that and he rocked backwards, flinging his arms wide in the air to keep his balance, and he then knocked the Mulberry bag I had been admiring off the display.

The shrieking alarm sound that followed completely deafened both me and him, and I would have placed both of my hands over my ears to protect my hearing if I wasn't rooting around in my bag for a damn tissue. I could feel my mascara slowly rolling down my cheeks as the tears began to move down my face.

"You want a reason for me to end this with you?" Mike scowled at me, lowering his head so that he could literally get right in my face. "This is why I'm ending it, Bella. You are so fucking embarrassing."

After his fiery little speech, he punched the Mulberry bag, for reasons completely unbeknown to me and then marched himself out of the shop.

I carefully moved my thumbs underneath my sunglasses and inspected them, unsurprised that they were covered in mascara gloop as a horde of shop assistants hurried over to the bag which was still swaying from the punch Mike had given it.

I concentrated on breathing while my mind chose this moment to sum up the fucking mess that had been my birthday, and it was only half one in the afternoon. I'd been dumped, seen my bitch of a boss take the new intern out for coffee and had an email from my estranged mother. Being banned from Selfridges would just be the icing on the cake right about now. However, it was an imaginary cake, because absolutely no one in the world had bought me one today anyway.

I swallowed hard to dismiss the sob I could feel rising up in my throat. But the ones that followed were lined up tidily and my frantic gulps meant that I started coughing and spluttering and –

"Don't cry," someone said behind me gruffly. "You'll only make it all seem worse than it is."

The voice then had an arm, which was curving around my shoulders and then led me towards the exit. Both the tone of his voice and his vicelike grip left me no room for any form of resistance.

"Let's get you out of here before they take you to court for physically harming a handbag."

I looked down and noticed that there were feet there too, highly polished black shoes. I was still coughing as I watched these feet walk alongside my worn flats while I was steered past the Louis Vuitton section and then found myself back out on Oxford Street, my eyes watering instead of crying, by some nameless, faceless man who was extremely well rehearsed in guiding the both of us through the throngs of people that bustled along the pavement.

I was safely delivered to the other side of the road and we began to walk down one of the side streets. I managed to stop myself from walking any further with this strange man and tugged on the sleeve of his expensive looking suit. "I'm okay now, thank you," I said as I sniffed, feeling incredibly ladylike, not.

I then glanced up at him, because I was curious to put some features on this blank face, and I was shocked to find absolute gorgeousness staring down at me through narrowed eyes. He had a thin, angular face with one of the most incredible jaw lines I'd ever seen and his eyes were a sparkling green in the sunlight that bathed down through spaces in buildings. His lips were quirked in something which wasn't quite a smile, but I didn't know how else to describe it as his copperish coloured, messy hair rippled in the late summer breeze. It was easier for me to focus on his suit, which, if I wasn't mistaken, and I never was when it comes to fashion, was Gucci.

"Well you don't look alright," he noted in his posh public school boy voice. "You look as if you need a drink."

He was devastatingly handsome. And older than me. Maybe early thirties, I thought to myself, taking a stab at his age.

"Look, I'm really sorry that I created a huge scene in there, and I can't thank you enough for getting me out of there unscathed, but I'm fine now, really."

"Where shall we go?" he pondered as he looked around and tried to gather his bearings.

"I can't –" I began to say but apparently I could, because his arm was placed on my shoulders again and he set off with his long-limbed stride so I had to practically gallop to keep up with him. "I have to go back to work," I panted. "My boss gets really annoyed if I take longer than an hour for lunch."

"Really? Well he seems rather tedious."

"He's a she, actually," I corrected him as I continued to struggle to keep up with his pace. I felt like I was being kidnapped, not to mention manhandled, in complete daylight, and for some obscure reason I wasn't fighting it. In fact, I was even glancing in the window of the boutiques which lined South Molton Street as I was rushed past them. So obviously the shock of being dumped and now being abducted had obliterated my rational thought process.

"Come on, keep up," the man said as he pulled me around several corners until he came to a halt outside an unmarked red door. He began to key in a security code on the panel beside the door and the logical side of my brain suddenly swung into action, screaming at me to run away as quickly as I could. I took a tentative, testing step to the right but his hand, which was still firmly placed on my shoulder, tightened, as did that sinking feeling in my stomach. "Ladies first."

A buzzing noise ensued and he slowly pushed the door open before he ushered me inside. I found myself in a dark space, the walls painted in the same red as the front door; the dark floorboards making the space seem completely devoid of any light at all. There was a large set of double doors ahead, but there was no way in hell that I was moving.

I then noticed that someone was walking towards me, a smiling woman dressed in a black dress with a white pinafore over it. "Good to see you again, sir," she said to my abductor who was standing right behind me. "Are you here for lunch?"

"Just drinks. Maybe some afternoon tea," he responded, finally taking his hand off my shoulder and he stepped forwards. His sleeve brushed against my arm and I flinched from the contact.

The front door was shut and the thud echoed around the small space. I got the feeling that I was safely cushioned in this deep, red place, where people only talked in hushed, soothing whispers and it was oddly comforting. So much so that, unexplainably, I began to cry again.

It wasn't so much as a cry though; this was full on sobbing, because the tears in Selfridges had only been the warm-up act, evidently. Being kidnapped had been a great diversion, but it was still my birthday and I'd only just been dumped and my life was just one big, fat heap of shit. I could feel my chest shuddering as I began to sob harder.

"Oh dear," the man said gently, cupping my elbow and steering me carefully down through the doors ahead and along the corridor, the woman following behind. "I'm sure it's not worth crying about. Sonya will take you somewhere to dry your eyes, while I order you a glass of champagne."

I tried to shrug indifference but I was still heaving, so I allowed myself be led through a side door and up a curving staircase.

"The bathroom is through there," Sonya whispered to me.

I raced into the nearest cubicle and sunk my arse down on the toilet seat, relieved to be able to finally cry in peace and without an audience.

The attendant I hadn't noticed previously averted her eyes from me when I emerged and I was grateful for her tact. I glanced up at my reflection and sighed as I took in the black gunk around my eyes, which spilled down my cheeks most flatteringly. I scrubbed away at my face and then appreciatively took the tinted moisturiser the attendant was holding out for me.

"Much better," he said as I slipped myself into the free chair at his table.

I had been ready to make a run for it, but there had been another woman strategically placed at the front door, who most helpfully guided me back to the main room.

The glass of champagne was waiting for me, as promised. I raised my eyes hesitantly to my kidnapper and immediately straightened my back against the chair under his penetrating gaze.

"I really need to get back to work," I stuttered as I a glanced out of the window, wondering why I never knew places like this really existed. He smiled assuredly at me, and it irked me incessantly.

"Don't be so silly," he said dismissively, as if going back to work was something completely foreign to him. "Drink your champagne."

I decided to stay and do as he asked because I really did need a drink. "I'm Bella," I said, my voice sounding incredibly horse, as if I hadn't used it for weeks. He shook the hand that I was offering sternly, his fingers warm as they brushed against my palm just long enough that I decided to hastily withdraw my hand completely.

"Edward Cullen," he offered, before he bowed his head to interrogate the menu.

I raised my glass in silent thanks towards him and then took a sip. The bubbles fizzed on my tongue as I took three large gulps of the liquid.

"I have no idea what 'fleur de sel' is, do you?" He asked conversationally as he looked up from his menu.

"'Fleur de sel' is just a fancy kind of salt," I said and then took in his raised eyebrow. "I like cooking."

"Shall we just have chocolate cake instead? And some tea. We should definitely have some tea."

I instinctively knew that there was absolutely no point in me trying to argue with his tone of voice. "Tea and cake is fine," I said and then picked up my glass of champagne again.

He raised his finger and the waitress suddenly appeared at the side of our table, not even writing down his order of three different kinds of chocolate cake and some tea.

I crossed my leg as the waitress hastily walked away towards the kitchen. The champagne was continuing to bubble inside my empty stomach which made me restless. I tapped my hand on my leg, wondering what the hell I was doing, sitting here trying to make conversation with a complete stranger. I didn't really have anything to say to him so I allowed my eyes to wander around the room.

"Well I'm pleased you aren't crying anymore," Edward said and coupled his words with one of those half-smiles of his. "No one should cry on their birthday."

I offered a small smile back at him. He's right, no one should cry on their birthday, be dumped, be jilted to a promotional opportunity by a damn intern...

"So, how old are you today?"

"Twenty-three," I sighed.

He smiled properly at me, and he seemed a bit younger than I had previously thought.

"Twenty-three is a good age," he said as a teapot and teacups were delivered to the table extremely efficiently. "This is going to be a very interesting year for you. I can tell."

"Was twenty-three an interesting year for you?"

"Yes," he said briskly and then nodded towards the teapot. "Do you mind? Milk, one sugar."

I lifted the teapot and carefully poured the tea into the cup, added the milk and dropped in a teaspoon full of sugar, as requested. "Do people always do what you ask them to?" I asked, and then any courage I'd built up to ask that question scurried away. "People never do what I tell them to."

Edward glanced critically at the cup I pushed his way and he then obviously decided that the tea met his exact standards. "By people, you mean your ex?"

I considered his words carefully. "Not just Mike. Everyone. People never take any notice of what I have to say," I said and then shook my head. "I'm sorry; I'm not usually like this. I mean, I don't tend to mope. I guess it's just a bad dose of the birthday blues."

"You just haven't learnt how to make people take you seriously yet," Edward said evenly and then leaned forward towards me. "I find not saying please or thank you helps greatly."

"Well, I'm pre-programmed to say please and thank you, even when I'm not actually either pleased or thankful." I poured myself a cup of tea and glanced up at Edward curiously. "So, do you make a habit of abducting young women from department stores?"

"I was wondering when you were going to ask me that."

"In all honesty, I should have probably asked during the abduction but I guess I was a bit shocked for my brain to act rationally," I said in a rather snotty voice, just so he knew that I wasn't a complete pushover.

"Anyway, I was wondering if I could ask you a favour."

The way he cut across everything I said and the way he completely ignored me began to really infuriate me. However, it didn't infuriate me as much as the sudden thought that this entire situation, being take for tea and chocolate cake and small chit-chat had some sinister ulterior motive. I was imagining schoolgirl outfits, whips, canes and possibly an incredibly strange wife, and a fetish for recording these events so they could be re-watched whenever he wanted to revisit his dirty fantasies.

I placed my hands on the arms of the chair I was seated on just as the chocolate cakes arrived. I bit down on my lip in consideration because the rich chocolate torte looked absolutely sinful. "I'm going," I announced coldly. Well, my voice had sounded cold in my head, but the reality was a tad more morose than I had intended. "I know exactly what kind of favour you're thinking about, and the answer is no."

Edward flashed me a smile, which was slightly bordering on a smirk and it felt really condescending. I was starting to really dislike him, in the very same way that I disliked my boss Lauren, my landlord, the snotty employees of the credit card companies that phoned me more regularly than my best friend Alice did...

"Be a good girl and sit yourself back down," he said calmly. "Haven't you caused enough scenes for one day?"

"Excuse me! Who the hell do you think you-"

"I saw you in Selfridges and decided that you were the sort of person who would know their way around a French cuff." He was already fiddling inside his pocket and then produced a small, black cufflink box which he placed on the table.

I shut my mouth quickly, realising that I had just completely overreacted.

"I lost one of my cufflinks so I popped out to buy some new ones. Surely the least you can do after I've bought you a glass of champagne is help me put them on."

I sunk back down onto the soft leather chair. "How did you fix your cufflinks this morning then?" I asked suspiciously, because I honestly still thought there was a wife lurking at home.

"Not very well, evidently," he explained as he held up one of his hands so I could see the messy cuff of his shirt for myself. "I'd really appreciate your help."

I rolled my eyes and picked up the small box from the table as I waved his arm over towards me. Edward lowered his eyes apologetically, which I didn't buy at all, as I slipped the pair of designer cufflinks, coloured in the same blue as his shirt, out of the box. I then took his hand.

It felt rather intimate, holding his hand. I pulled my chair forwards and patted my knee so Edward could rest his hand on it while I gathered up his sleeve so I could reach his cuff. I'd done much worse than put a cufflink on a man before, but still, my cheeks flushed bright red.

I excused myself for the blush though, because I'd had a shitty day and it must be because I had drunk champagne on an empty stomach.

"There you go," I said and then pushed his hand away from me, not before noting how beautiful his hands were. "I really should get back to work now; they really are going to think that I've been kidnapped."

"Would you like to take some cake back with you?"

"No thank you," I said, even though I really would have liked to.

It seemed that Edward knew that I really wanted some cake too, if the smirk that was plastered on his face as he inspected his cufflinks was anything to go by.

"Well, I hope you enjoy the rest of your birthday," he said, as if he didn't really care one way or the other.

And now, even though I should have been walking away from the table, I found myself rooted to the spot. "I shouldn't have snapped at you," I blurted out. "I'm sorry."

"Another reason why people take me seriously is because I never apologise, even when – no, especially when I should," he told me coolly. "No pleases, no thank yous, no sorries. Remember that and you just might have that interesting year I was talking about."

With those words of wisdom, I held out my hand for him to shake, but in complete surprise, he lowered his head and placed a kiss on the top of it. I jerked my hand away rather quickly and then hurried my way out of the room, along the red corridor until I was back out on the street. I spun around on the spot as I tried to get my bearings.

I then looked through the glass window and could see Edward forking some of that chocolate torte I was eyeing earlier. He suddenly raised his head and found me staring at him. I lifted my hand and waved limply at him for some inconceivable reason. He didn't wave back, but he did keep looking at me with a concentrated stare, and I realised that I should start to walk away now.

No matter how much I tried to ignore it though, my hand tingled for the entire afternoon.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: I don't own it.**

**Chapter Two**

I was currently in my second favourite place in the whole world, after Selfridges, and I couldn't help the beaming smile that was covering my face. The material that I could feel as I ran my fingers over the rails and rails of clothes filled me with a happiness I couldn't even begin to describe.

It wasn't just the clothes and shoes that fill The Cupboard which were the cause for my happiness though. It was the fact that I'd just been informed that I might be going to New York with my boss. She was a bit of a bitch if I was being honest, but given that she was offering me the opportunity to travel I couldn't really moan about the fact that she'd just had a massive go at me for not being creative enough.

I allowed myself a couple of minutes to jump up and down in glee and then settled myself down so that I could sort through the pairs of shoes which had just arrived from one of the shoots that had happened during the week.

All of a sudden, the door to The Cupboard opened with a loud bang, and I glanced up to see Alice, my best friend, stomp through to where I was sitting.

"Bella, did you tell me that you broke up with Mike?" she asked as she came to a halt at my feet and looked down at me with one of her hands placed on her hip. "I have absolutely no memory of you telling me that things ended between you both."

"Yes, I told you on Friday night." I picked up one of the pairs of shoes I had organised and placed them in the correct hole on the wall of shoes. "However, I was pretty drunk, and you were absolutely drunk, so I can understand why you can't remember me telling you. I do think I cried though."

"Well I remember you crying but I thought that was because you had drunk far too much and regretted your decision to dye your hair that blonde colour. Oh my gosh, look at that dress!" she cooed as she picked out one of the new tunic dresses we'd just had delivered and began to wiggle into it over her clothes. "I was sure we talked about your hair on Friday..."

"I was crying because Mike had dumped me, but apparently Mike dumped me because of my hair so I guess that's how you came up with that assumption." I had managed to not think about Mike for a good hour, but this current conversation was pushing the happiness at New York right into the back of my mind, making room for the depressing Mike thoughts to come to the forefront of my head again. "Or he said it was my hair but we both knew that was just a lame excuse. Oh and Alice, you know I love you, but if you continue to try on clothes without unzipping them, I'm going to have to kill you."

"Sorry, Bella, it's just so pretty!" Alice stopped wiggling around and I stood up so that I could unzip it. It fell over her perfect figure and I watched as she took stock of herself in the mirrored wall. She smiled at her reflection for a second, and then rearranged her expression into something more sympathetic and appropriate for our current discussion.

"Okay, I'm done trying on clothes. Let's get back to this whole dumping thing. I think Mike is regretting his lame excuse. He seemed really down and sullen when he came to pick Jasper up before they went to the pub last night. But do you know what I can't get over? The fact that he dumped you on your birthday. That's just wrong, it's rude even."

"And did he tell you where he dumped me?" I asked as I raised an eyebrow at Alice and from her expression I gathered that, no, Mike didn't tell Alice where he had so pleasantly ended our relationship. "In Selfridges – and he even punched a Mulberry bag in a fit of absolute rage!"

"That's awful!" Alice responded, with her eyes wide. "Was it one of the new season bags? Why would he do that? I'm going to make sure that I have a serious word with him about all of this. Oh poor Bella, do you want a hug?"

I shook my head because Alice hugging me would mean that I ended up crying again and I didn't want to do that here, in my second favourite place in the whole world, especially given that my number one favourite spot had been tarnished by the whole Mike dumping me thing. "I'm okay, but if you really wanted to do something for me, could you call me in some more of that amazing lip gloss you managed to get me last month?"

"Of course I can. I'll get some other goodies sent over from them too," Alice promised, and even though I said I didn't want a hug, I felt Alice give my arm a quick squeeze.

There was definitely something to be said for having a best friend who worked as a Junior Editor in the beauty department. There was also something to be said for having a best friend like Alice, even if I did spend rather a lot of time wondering if we actually came from the same planet, let alone the same solar system.

We had become friends at work, both of us starting as assistants, only Alice had moved up the ranks whereas I had simply stayed where I started. We'd both managed to run up thousands of pounds in credit card debt, but Alice's father loved to write his little princess cheques and that therefore meant that she didn't have to put on a questionable Eastern European accent each time the bailiffs came round.

We both dated boys from the same band, but after that dreaded three month mark, Jasper had declared his undying love for Alice and had moved into her flat, bought by Daddy of course, whereas Mike had dumped me.

We both wore the same size in clothes, but Alice seemed to have this Olympian speed metabolism which meant she could eat whatever she wants, whereas I had to work to keep my trim figure, and then there was also the fact that I couldn't actually afford to eat anything more than baked beans anyway.

So I guess we were the same, but different. And although sometimes I found the fact that Alice seemed to have the easy road in life and didn't really understand the word struggle, I still felt that I had lucked out completely in the best friend department.

"So if Mike gets his act together and realises that he's behaved like an absolute arsehole, would you get back with him? Maybe if he got down on his knees and grovelled or something?" Alice asked as she wiggled herself out of the dress which she was still wearing.

"Okay, stop right there, Alice," I growled and then spun Alice around so that I could slide the zip down, meaning that she wouldn't actually rip the dress as she struggled to get out of it. "Mike and I are done. My three months were up. You know me; I'm the queen of the three month relationship."

"Oh please, Bella. Will you stop being so dramatic. One day you'll meet some gorgeous man who'll worship you and the ground you walk on. He'll want to do all kinds of fabulous things for you, he'll always put you first..."

"Does Jasper always put you first?" I asked with a grin while I make a concerted effort to shake my Mike-filled bad mood from my mind.

"Most of the time, but not always. I'm working on it."

Alice's unwavering optimism for my love life was suddenly interrupted by the arrival of the two boys who worked in the post room, wheeling in a crate filled with clothing bags.

Alice clapped her hands together in delight. "New clothes!" she shrieked.

I glanced over at the trolley. The sight of an expensive cardboard bag with a designer name printed on it in an interesting font never ceased to perk me up. However, my eyes suddenly moved to the Selfridges gift bag which was perched precariously on the top of the pile.

"This isn't ours..." I began to say but then I peeked at the label which was attached to the bag: _For Bella, aged 23, c/o Fabulous Magazine._

I frowned in curiosity at the bag and waved the post boys out of The Cupboard, which wasn't really big enough for them as well as Alice and me. I knelt down on the floor and grabbed the scissors as I snipped away at the Selfridges labels which had been used to seal the gift bag. Opening up the bag, I pushed away the tissue paper and peeked at some pink leather, which only added to my curiosity as to who the hell this could be from.

I was aware of the fact that my hands were now shaking slightly as I reached down and lifted the bag up out of the Selfridges gift bag. It was the unfortunate Bayswater Lipstick Ostrich Mulberry bag which had been lovingly looked at, stroked, patted, punched and then cried over.

How strange.

Maybe Mike had realised the error of his ways, robbed a bank and was offering me this bag as a kind of olive branch of sorts. But in all reality, he wouldn't have the means or the balls to rob a bank, and he wouldn't have the intuition and generosity to buy me something of this magnitude, or anything of any value really.

I ran my reverent hands over the beautiful leather of the bag and explored the inside of it, when my hand clasped around a piece of card which I pulled out and then read: _I think the punch has seriously affected the resale value. _The scrawl was more elegant than any handwriting I'd ever seen before, it's ridiculously pretty. _Happy belated birthday. E_

Edward. It had been five days since the strangest lunch-hour of my entire life. I hadn't forgotten a single moment of my abduction although I had tried desperately hard to forget it. The whole reason as to why I'd been trying to forget the whole encounter was because every time I thought about that red room, the weird club where I'd drunk tea and forsaken that delicious looking chocolate cake, I remembered his penetrating stare, his beautiful voice and his gorgeous good looks and I ended up getting the shivers.

I turned the card over.

_E. Cullen_

_Acquisitions Consultant_

There was also a Mayfair address and a mobile number prefixed by an international dialling code.

What on earth was an acquisitions consultant? What the hell was he acquiring? Weaponry? Antiques? Women? Was he a professional abductor or something, had I had a very narrow escape from being sold on the black market to some wealthy man who wanted to do very weird things to me?

"Let me look at it!" Alice snatched the bag from my grasp so that she could see what it looked like hanging from her arm in the mirror. I had to admit to myself that it looked good on her, but then again, everything looked good on Alice. "What spread is this for?"

I sighed and got to my feet. "It's not for a shoot. It's for me. From that guy." For some strange reason, my voice was nothing but a whisper, probably to match the weirdness of the situation.

"What guy?" Alice asked with a squeal. "Tell me, Bella, what guy has just spent three thousand pounds on a Mulberry bag for you? Why haven't you told me about him? No wonder you're not interested in getting back together with Mike when you've got some man buying you expensive handbags on the side."

"For goodness sake, Alice, you really must start to actually listen to me when I talk to you, or learn to retain information for more than two seconds at a time, especially when you're drunk. The guy! The guy I met in Selfridges like three seconds after Mike punched this very bag, the one who dragged me out of the store and took me for tea and cake and was just... strange."

I glanced over at Alice's face and could see that she had no recollection of this story at all.

"He was wearing a Gucci suit," I prompted, because she would remember that kind of detail.

"No, I would have remembered that." Alice's inner turmoil was clearly evident in the wrinkles which appeared on her forehead, even though she had vowed that she wouldn't frown ever again last month in a last ditch attempt to prevent herself from needing Botox at the suggestion of the Beauty Director. "Wait! Something's coming back to me – something about cufflinks..."

"He asked me to help him out with his cufflinks," I reminded her as I began to hang the clothes that have just been delivered onto a rail so they could be sorted and steamed.

I could see out of the corner of my eye that Alice was practically vibrating with excitement. "Okay. And then what?"

"Well, he asked me to do him a favour and at first I thought he meant... well, you know, and I told him to fuck off. Actually, I don't think I told him to fuck off but I barked something to that extent at him."

"You do have a great bark," Alice said as she hung up the tunic dress she had just tried on and placed it back where she found it, and I made a mental note to remind myself that I needed to check it was perfect before I could forget about it. "Tell me everything and don't you dare skip any of it."

See now that was the problem, because I didn't really think there was actually that much to tell. However, there were details of that day which had been milling around in my mind and I knew I'd been waiting for the opportunity to dissect every minute of that weird hour with Alice, even though I'd said it all before.

"And he was quite honestly the most obnoxious man I've ever met in my entire life," I said ten minutes later, having summarised my encounter rather nicely, making sure that I hadn't left even the smallest detail out.

"Is he really? Because I find it hard to believe that anyone could be more obnoxious than Heidi."

I pondered Alice's words and then corrected my last statement and began to compare Edward and Heidi, my boss. "It would be pretty close; I'm not sure who would win the title of the most obnoxious person in the world actually."

Alice handed the bag back to me reluctantly and I couldn't help but stroke the beautiful pink leather.

"You have to admit, Bella, it's a bit sexy."

"It wasn't sexy," I returned, well aware of the fact that my face was flushing. "He was old."

"Old or older?"

"Does it matter? He was old."

"Of course it matters."

I sighed and rolled my eyes at her. "He was older."

"Well that's okay then."

"And he stared. A lot," I said as I remembered his blazing, unwavering, green eyes.

"I don't know about you, Bella, but I would most certainly allow and older man to stare at me a lot for an hour if it meant I received a three thousand pound bag afterwards," Alice sighed. "Maybe the bag was sent to you to make up for Mike dumping you."

"Somehow, I don't think it was some karma thing, Alice. It was just weird. And the horrible thing about all of this is the fact that I can't keep the bag."

"Why? Are you worried that he'll turn up and want to do more than stare at you for payment for the bag?" Alice giggled, and I could hardly blame her because the whole situation was ridiculously weird. Things like this just didn't happen to me.

I didn't giggle along with her though, because I was thinking of those long fingers of his running torturously slowly along my body. In any other situation, I would have probably been knocked off my feet in horror, but I wasn't. Instead, I was still standing on my own two feet and nothing had knocked me over, because it was him I was thinking of, not someone else.

"Nothing like that, Alice." I insisted and then turned around so that I could attempt to cool my burning face. "I'm probably just going to sell it on eBay for some spare cash."

I decided I might keep it for a few weeks first though. Just so that I could admire it because it really was beautiful.


	3. Chapter 3

**Sorry for the delay in updating. Real Life and all. I'm hoping to get the chapters out much quicker now year end is over at work.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own it.**

**Chapter Three**

I carried the Bayswater Lipstick Ostrich Mulberry bag all the way home with me on the tube and as soon as I entered my flat, I marched over to my small bedroom and hid it under the bed.

I did my best to ignore the bag all night but it was like it was emitting this low hum which was calling to me. Trying desperately hard to get lost in the world of the soaps I watched almost religiously, I still couldn't seem to block out the noise. The hum from the bag was leaving me twitching and restless, until it got to the point where I could tolerate no more and so I tiptoed across to my bedroom, pulled the bag out from under my bed and then stared at it for a very long time.

For the next five nights I slept intermittently, all because I knew that I was sleeping on top of three thousand pounds worth of luscious leather. A familiar routine was starting to take shape. I would twist and turn in bed, biting down on my lip as I told myself I was being ridiculous and I should just shut my eyes and go to sleep. But the tossing and turning wouldn't stop, and then I'd give in, switch the lamp on and grab the bag from under the bed and stare at it some more, as if it held some big secret inside of it and not just a business card belonging to Edward Cullen, before it was stashed underneath the bed again and I could finally fall asleep knowing that it was still there, and some bag thief hadn't stolen it from me while I lay in the darkness.

It was still under my bed on Saturday night. And even though I found myself five miles away from my flat in some dingy, disgusting pub in a dingy and disgusting part of East London, the bag still managed to possess some otherworldly ability to make my palms itch to run along the pink leather.

"You haven't been listening to a word I've been saying, have you?" Alice whined.

I wasn't about to lie to her and agree because what she had just said wasn't one hundred percent true. I hadn't been listening fully to what she'd had to say. But over the rather loud music which was playing through the speakers, and obviously thinking about my bag, I had managed to catch every eighth word she'd said. I tried to piece together what I had from her conversation but none of it made any sense.

"What's directional?" I asked as I tried very hard to sit up straight and look like she had all of my concentration, even though the sofa we were sitting on was sagging so much that I was almost sitting on the floor. Feeling the sweaty heat of the pub, I gathered my hair into a loose ponytail in the hope of catching a cooling breeze on my neck.

"Directions! I was talking about going to the Isle of Wight festival again this year," Alice said. I noticed that her forehead was damp with perspiration, which was a first. Normally Alice didn't do anything as uncivilized as sweat. "But my dad has to give me a car with Sat Nav in it first. You remember what happened last year, right?"

As if I could forget. We'd managed to get to the Isle of Weight, but not without taking an incredibly long detour to Devon first and somehow I'd managed to get the blame for it. "Yeah, Mike called me a stupid bitch because I apparently screwed up the map reading and we weren't even going out then. Remind me why I dated him again?"

"Because you fell in love with each other." Alice responded in an incredibly serious and wistful tone.

That wasn't it at all. Not even close. I had fancied Mike and may have pestered Alice to set me up with him because he had dirty-blonde hair and a dirty grin to match. And he was in a band, which made up for a hell of a lot. Especially when we could curl up on my sofa on a rainy afternoon, and he could strum out Beatles songs on his guitar while I knitted and the rest of the world passed by outside. That had been nice, but it hadn't been love.

"I didn't love him, Alice. I liked him. A lot. Really a lot, for the first two months at least. Then I didn't like him quite so much but it wasn't bad enough for us to split up over it, you know?" I didn't want Alice to agree because when Alice was seeing someone, they usually swore their undying devotion within the first two minutes. "Anyway, I don't believe in love. Never have done. Never will."

Alice rolled her eyes at me. "I've already told you, Bella, that you just haven't met the right guy yet," she said. "And I don't think it will be awkward tonight if Mike turns up, because I really think he's been missing you. Well, he seems like he's been missing you."

"Whatever. If he does turn up then I need more alcohol than the human body can usually withstand. Hold that thought." I fished around in my purse and came up with a handful of coins. "That's all I've got," I announced sorrowfully, counting them out. "Three pounds and fifty-seven pence. Let's buy a bottle of wine and stick it on my card."

Technically I only had one credit card left out of the nine I had wedged in my purse which wasn't maxed out, but along with the scary brown envelops I never opened, there had been a letter from a finance company offering me a shiny new card, which had been in a nice white envelope, and thus had been opened. And it only had an APR of thirty-eight percent, not that I actually knew what that meant.

Alice folded her arms and tried her very best to look disapproving. "Are you having money problems again?"

"When am I not having money problems? It will be okay, no one's phoning up yet..."

"And if they do, you just change your phone number, that's what I'd do if I was you," Alice said blithely and then stood up. "I'm going to the bar, I'll get the drinks."

"No, you always get the drinks," I protested, because if there's one thing that's worse than being broke, it was being tight. And anyway, I was more than used to being broke, in fact, the word 'broke' ceased to have any meaning with me anymore. And spending ten quid on a bottle of bad white wine wasn't going to make much of a difference to the ridiculous amount of money I owed. "Just take my card."

"Bella, I don't mind, honestly."

"I appreciate the offer, Alice, but take my card or else I'm going to drink tap water all night and you'll have to get pissed on your own," I said triumphantly and slapped my card down on the table.

"God, you're annoying sometimes." Alice scooped up the card with an aggrieved air because there was no truer sign of friendship than a shared pin number.

I watched Alice walk to the bar with an automatic sway to her hips, which made every man in the place, even the ones who thought they were too cool for a pub like this, look longingly at her like she was a Siren about to lure them on to the rocks.

_E. Cullen_

_Acquisitions Consultant_

I was still wondering what he was acquiring.

Alice was flirting with the Australian barman as I tucked my itching palms under my arms and looked up. The door suddenly burst open and a crowd of people came in; a crowd of lanky, floppy-haired people. And as usual, the first sight of Mike made my heart flip over because he really was pretty, but the stubble and the tattoos gave him a dangerous edge. God, the bad boys really were my kryptonite.

I steeled my mouth to smile at him but I shouldn't have bothered, because he didn't notice it. Mike was far too busy attaching his mouth to the neck of a waifish girl wearing a rip-off Burberry scarf.

"Bella! How's life in the fashion fast lane? Let you out of that cupboard yet, have they?" Jasper, Alice's boyfriend, bellowed as he strode over and took the bottle straight out of Alice's hands before she could put it down on the table. "I'll get some more glasses, shall I?"

"Hey, baby," Alice cooed, patting his bum with a proprietorial air. I couldn't really blame her for wanting to mark her territory, given the type of place we found ourselves in.

"This is Bella," Mike said, sitting down and almost pushing me off the sofa so that he could make room for his little friend. "She's in fashion."

I assumed a nonchalant expression as I was scrutinised by four sets of eyes all clocking my vintage sundress and finding it rather lacking.

"Nice dress," the little friend smirked. "I think my mum has one just like it."

"Oh, do you still live at home?" I asked sweetly. "How retro of you."

I got a glittering smile from the little friend in return, and then she played her winning hand. "Well duh. Of course I still live at home. I'm only seventeen."

~*~*

"You utter, utter bastard! You replaced me with a younger model!" I screeched much, much later. Two bottles of wine and a dodgy kebab from a questionable fast food joint later. There had been a vague plan to flag down a taxi but the glowing orange light of an empty cab had been an elusive sight as we trudged past bleak industrial sites and even bleaker council estates. Still, it had given me the very prime opportunity to get my rant on, and I was taking full advantage of it.

Mike was staring at the peeling toe of his trainers, and looking as if he wished he had somewhere else to be. No one had asked him to walk home with us, but Lauren and her public school posse had piled into a parental people carrier so they could go home and braid each other's hair. Or whatever it was seventeen year old girls did for kicks these days.

"Have you fucked her?" I grabbed Mike's arm. "Did you dump me because you're hitting that fashion-backwards teeny-bopper? It didn't stop you from trying to get into my pants last week, did it?" Being drunk really brought out my vicious inner bitch.

Mike obviously thought so too because he shook free from my grasp and gave me a thoughtful look. It was strange to see something pensive flash across his face for once. "I've been trying to figure it out all week," he said. "Because you're cool and stuff, but you know what? You really want to know why I broke it off?"

"Go on! Enlighten me with your amazing insights, Dr Freud."

"It's because you aren't any fun, Bella."

"Bella is fun!" Alice protested loyally. "She dressed up as a chav last Halloween, and that was hysterical."

Jasper was forced to agree, even though he wasn't really my biggest fan, because my shell suit and chav facelift had been rather amusing.

"We did loads of fun stuff," I insisted as we crossed the street. "I came around and baked you brownies, and I invented the Ugly Betty drinking game. And what about the time you played that gig in Brighton and I made you go on the waltzers afterwards..."

Mike nodded along as I continued to give him example after example of what a great girlfriend I had been. "Yeah, yeah, I know all that," he conceded. "But that's it. You're funny, but you're not happy." He nodded again, a short, decisive dip of his head. "You have no happiness in you, Bella. You just fake it."

We had come to a halt by a zebra crossing so that we could watch the bus we should have caught sail past, making a faint breeze out of the hot summer's night, so my dress fluttered against my legs as I felt the warm gust of the exhaust envelop me. The feint shrieks from a gaggle of drunken girls stumbling home echoed in my ears and I looked over Mike's shoulder at the City stretching out in the distance. I'd never get used to looking up at the London sky and not being able to see the stars, but the neon and the streetlights would do instead.

"You're the fake," I said bitterly. "You're just a lame, tenth-generation copy of Kurt Cobain in your dreams."

"Why can't you two just kiss and make up?" Alice begged. "You wouldn't be getting so mad if you didn't still care about each other."

"The only thing I care about is the three months I wasted on him," I sulked, taking a sharp left. "Fuck this!"

Alice's hand was in mine before I could take another step. "Come back to ours for tea and toast. You shouldn't walk home on your own."

"I'll be fine," I hissed so Mike and Jasper wouldn't hear. I tried to pull free from Alice's hand but she just tightened her grip. "I can't do this. I can't pretend that everything is okay and I'm not bothered about Mike being here, because I am. He dumped me so he doesn't get to flaunt his new girlfriend in my face and then act surprised when I call him up on it."

"He could have handled it better but maybe he was just trying to make you jealous," Alice whispered. "Or he wants to be friends. That wouldn't be so bad, would it?"

"It would be beyond bad." I finally succeeded in tugging my hand away and managed a small smile to soften the blow. "I just want to go home and be by myself for a little bit. I still have at least a week's worth of wallowing time."

"Are you sure? It's not really safe..."

I rummaged in my bag. "Look, I'll have my keys in one hand and the rape alarm my gran bought me in the other." I took a step away from Alice's concerned face. "I'll call you later and I'll take a break from wallowing so we can go out for a fry-up."

I continued to take steps back until there was a huge expanse of space between us.

"Okay," Alice agreed grudgingly. "But you're still going the wrong way."

Alice was right, but there was no chance of me retracing my steps and having to walk half of the way home with the three of them until we parted ways. "I fancy some fresh air," I lied, and finally Alice was nodding so I was able to walk away.

~*~*

Going home via a three mile detour hadn't been the smartest of all my plans. However, I was finally turning into my street and I ran the last few yards home just so I'd get there that little bit quicker, then slowed down so I could quietly open the front door and creep down the hall and up the stairs without waking Mrs Cope on the ground floor.

Mrs Cope, my landlady, charged me a moderate amount of money a week for a one-bedroom flat, which was really a bedsit with ideas way above its station. I had two rooms, which were meant to be separated by a screen door but it had shifted off its castors. One room was the kitchen, dining and living room and the other was the bedroom.

The flat could have been lovely. It had high ceilings and a huge bay window behind my bed, but the damp had taken hold and wouldn't let go. The place had been freshly painted when I had handed over my deposit, but now there were streaks of moisture staining the walls and mildew collecting on the insides of the windows, and I had packed all my worldly goods from clothes to books to magazines, in huge, vacuum-sealed plastic storage bags so they wouldn't rot.

If I wasn't always six months in arrears with my rent, I would have found somewhere else to live, except I remembered the poky rooms in shared houses I'd looked at when Jasper had moved into Alice's and I'd moved out. Still, it would have been nice to have my own bathroom rather than sharing the one on the ground floor with Mrs Cope and the Polish girls who had the flat above mine.

I could hear the two of them clumping up the stairs now as I realised that drunk and depressed had become sober and depressed and actually it was too cold to be sanding in my underwear eating peanut butter straight out of the jar with a teaspoon. It was almost four in the morning and staying up so that the dark was turning into smudges of lights always made me feel the chill.

I licked the teaspoon thoughtfully and tried to find my happy place, though according to Mike I didn't actually have one. Mike wasn't big with the perception, but he'd half-glimpsed something that I thought no one else ever saw. A girl who drifted through life without ever touching the sides. A girl who didn't get the most cake, because she was something less than all the other girls.

Then again, there was a Bayswater Lipstick Ostrich Mulberry bag underneath my bed which said otherwise.

Maybe I hadn't sobered up completely. I definitely had the early morning blahs. That's why I was walking over to my bed and was pulling the bag out from underneath it with my phone in my other hand. If he hadn't wanted me to call, then he shouldn't have given me a card with his number on it.

And before I could pontificate on the wheres and whys and the absolutely spectacular what-the-fuck-am-I-thinking, I punched in the number.

The plan was to leave a message. A breezy, casual 'thanks even though you don't do thanks' voicemail because... because... because it was rude not to.

"Hello?"

I took the phone away from my ear so that I could stare at it in disbelief. Why was he answering on the first ring? That wasn't part of the plan.

The next 'hello?' was tinny and tetchy.

"Hi," I said quickly, my mind racing through the possibilities of why he was up and why I was ringing before the cock crowed. Not that where I lived had a huge number of crowing cocks. "It's Bella. We met in Selfridges."

"Oh yes, I remember." There was a delay on the line, which threw me into even more confusion.

"I'm sorry to call you so late. I was just going to leave a message," I babbled, my words sticking together in a garbled rush.

Edward gave me the tiniest chuckle. "It's not that late where I am."

"Where are you?"

"In Miami, just coming back from a very boring business dinner."

"For real?" Incredulity won out over breezy and casual.

"Yes, for real. I could stick the phone out of the car window to see if I can pick up some salsa music if you need proof." Edward snickered again and God, I thought, this had been such a bad idea.

"Okay... I'll take your word for it," I said, walking into the kitchen and flicking the corner of a postcard I'd pinned to the corkboard in the kitchen as an alternative to hurling myself out of the window. "Well, I just –"

"But it's very late where you are," Edward continued, and now I remembered how he'd constantly interrupted me mid-sentence when I'd been sitting across from him in that red room. "Why are you still up?"

"Oh, I only just got in and I wasn't ready to go to bed yet. Thought I'd catch up on my outstanding correspondence." That was better. It was almost breezy and casual. "So anyways," I rushed on, "how did you find out where I worked?" That two-second pause after everything I said while the fibre optics sent my words over several time zones, made me feel as if my tongue was this cumbersome thing that had found its way into my mouth by accident.

"Would you buy that I put a tracing agent in your champagne? No? You had a very fetching security laminate around your neck," Edward replied. "What do you do at _Fabulous _magazine?"

"Well technically I'm the style director's assistant but mostly I live in the fashion cupboard."

"In the fashion cupboard?"

"Yeah, the fashion cupboard. It's where we keep the, er, fashion."

"And do you like it?"

"I love the fashion part but the cupboard bit, not so much. What do you do? I've narrowed it down to a weapons supplier or human trafficking."

The chuckle of his upgraded to a full-throated laugh and I wondered what Edward looked like when he did that. "Oh, it's much worse than that. I'm an art dealer."

That would be my cue to say something incisive and intelligent about the modern art world gleaned from all the articles I'd flicked through but not read in the free evening paper. But I was too busy nervously twisting my legs around each other, until I banged into the side of the fridge. I settled for a hesitant: "Cool." The two-second delay stretched into five and counting. "So, like, anyway, I wanted to thank you for the bag but you don't do the thanks thing, so can I take you out for a drink sometime instead?"

Where the fuck had that come from? Edward was saying something and I didn't really want to hear what it was. "You're offering to buy me a drink?" He didn't sound at all repulsed. "That's... well, rather charming. You lower-middle-class girls do have beautiful manners."

"I am not lower middle class," I gritted immediately. "I come from St Albans and my grandfather was a bank manager for God's sake." Edward laughed again and being mad at him made the nerves and the awkwardness melt away. "I'm sorry, did I ask you out for a drink? I must have taken huge amounts of drugs at some point during the evening."

It would have been easier for me to just hang up the phone instead of walking into the bedroom and flinging myself down on the bed, which creaked in protest, but I still hadn't figured out how to do easy. I also wished I hadn't got undressed because this wasn't the kind of conversation I wanted to have while I was wearing a pair of rainbow patterned knickers and a bra that had been through the wash too many times.

"Are you pouting?" he asked.

"No," I lied. "And I take back the drink thing. Revoked. Never happened."

"You can't take it back," Edward said smugly. "You said it, it's out there. I'm checking my BlackBerry right now."

"Well I'm going to New York the week after next so I'm very, very, bus-"

"I'm in New York then too." Of course Edward would be in New York too. He probably spent loads of time in New York; it was like a second home to him and he had a favourite deli, bought his cufflinks in Barney's and he'd go to a New York version of the club he'd taken me to where all the staff knew his name and his favourite brand of champagne.

"I've never been to New York before, " I hear myself confess haltingly, because there was something about Edward which made me feel so nervous that I just blurted out the first thing that came into my head.

"Well, how fortunate that our schedules have us there at the same time," he said smoothly. "Fine, we'll do drinks there if you can find a window in between doing the Circle Line tour and trying to find the Empire State Building. Where are you staying?"

And I had just been imagining that my gaucheness was going to pass unnoticed. "Did you hear what I just said about the drinks thing being totally revoked?"

"Give me your exact dates."

"God, you're pushy," I sighed without much bite, because there was something to be said for a man who got what he wanted and didn't just wheedle and whine until she did it for him. Like, say, Mike.

"Determined," Edward corrected firmly. "Dates: sometime before the end of the year would be preferable."

I rattled off the relevant information after a few false starts because Heidi had been changing the dates and times on an hourly basis. "I probably won't return your calls," I warned him. "Just so you know.

"Of course you won't," he said cheerfully. "It's very late, you should get some sleep. Being tired obviously makes you cranky."

And then he rang off before I could give him an example of just how cranky it made me.


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: I don't own it.**

**Chapter Four**

New York was a city which had always been on my hit list. It was somewhere I had wanted to go ever since I'd become obsessed with Sex and the City. So as the plane touched down at JFK airport, I was giddy as hell, and so excited to finally be here.

And it would have been nice if I'd had time to do all the touristy things that Edward had sneered at, like taking the Circle Line tour, or falling down on my knees and kissing the ground outside Bergdorf Goodman, or staring happily at the steps of Carrie Bradshaw's home, and all other things that I had promised myself I would do when I finally managed to get myself to Manhattan. But the only remotely touristy thing I'd done was take a yellow taxi from the airport to the hotel, and then from the hotel to the studio.

So far, New York had been three days of fetching, carrying, faxing and phoning. And all of that usually happened before I had even got to whichever studio we were shooting at that day. Then, upon arriving at the studio, I'd steam clothes, attend to the skittish models and put out every single one of Heidi's fires. I had already resigned myself to the fact that my boss's voice would never register below a scream for the duration of the trip. My ears were starting to bleed.

I was currently laying down on the roof of one of the studio complexes in the Meatpacking District, which was the centre of the New York fashion universe and only a hop and a five minute dash to the Mark Jacobs shop in the West Village, not that I'd had time to visit its greatness, but it was nice knowing I was close by, at least. And I was also smoking, because I'd had to hurl myself back into the loving arms of Marlboro Lights as an alternative to having a stress-induced heart attack. It was either that or crying – and I knew that once I started crying, I most certainly wouldn't be able to stop.

The day had started off well, or at least as well as a day working instead of taking in the New York city sights could be. I had loved the cavernous space that was Studio 5 with its vaulted ceiling and the sun beaming in through the huge skylights. It even had a decent sized dressing room and not the usual alcove with just enough room for a clothes rail and a really skinny model. Heidi had a breakfast meeting so I could wolf down several cherry Danishes without being screamed at for having grease smears on my fingers. And Tyler, the photographer's junior assistant, was a rather foxy boy who recognised me as a kindred spirit from the global put-upon assistants' club.

Even the huge number of satin dresses that had all needed to be painstakingly steamed to get the creases out couldn't put a damper on my day. The stereo had blared early Motown, Tyler had totally been checking out my arse in my skinny jeans; all was right in my world.

When I had first started coming to shoots, I'd been amazed at the vast number of people involved. Then I'd been amazed that they didn't actually do any work but instead lounged on the leather sofas that every photo studio had, drinking coffee and leafing through various fashion magazines, no doubt for 'research' purposes. There were two make-up artists and two hair stylists – none of whom had even opened their cases. The photographer had two assistants. There were three guys from the studio fiddling with Coloramas and computers. Two catering assistants. One handyman. And a large bloke in a baseball cap who'd wandered in and started making himself a sandwich but didn't seem to have anything to do with anyone.

The day had started to career downhill soon after Heidi had arrived and proceeded to spend hours arguing with the photographer over the position of a teeny, tiny sidelight. I had made a mental note to keep out of her way as she wrangled the models: three lanky teenagers who had a collective annual earnings of £5 million and about five brain cells apiece. I had spent the next couple of hours on my knees pinning hems, helping them put their shoes on and holding mobile phones and cigarette lighters and generally genuflecting at regular intervals.

It was the same old, same old, but at least I was doing it in New York, rather than in some draughty studio on an industrial estate near Kings Cross, which automatically made it more exciting. Even when one of the models had a high-volume argument with her boyfriend on her iPhone, then locked herself in the toilet, I had managed to keep my cool. Or rather, I'd got Becky to coax the girl out with the promise of some Xanax, after all of my own pleading and threats had fallen flat.

Finally there were no more frocks left to steam, no more models to pander to, and I had just been looking forward to sitting unobtrusively on one of the sofas so I could watch the shoot, when Cassandra had hurried over with a grim look on her face. "Bella, Heidi wants you," she said urgently. "There a problem with one of the Marchesa gowns."

The words 'Heidi' and 'problem' in the same sentence didn't bode well and I instantly felt the butterflies in my stomach start to flutter away nervously. I hurried into the dressing room to find Heidi tapping the floor with one pointy toe. "What colour is this?" she demanded without preamble, carelessly grabbing a handful of dress that I had spent ages steaming.

"Red?" I asked uncertainly, because Heidi liked trick questions almost as much as oxygen facials.

"It's not red – it's scarlet." Heidi thrust the dress at me. "I told you to call in the crimson!"

"It is the crimson," I said without first weighting up the pros and cons of disagreeing with Heidi. I made a mental note to myself to think before opening my mouth in future. "It looks scarlet but it photographs as crimson. I had a whole discussion with the publicist about it."

"It's not the same dress I specifically marked in the LookBook," Heidi growled, which was a nice change from the continual screaming and actually gave my ears a much needed rest. Maybe that was why I was lulled into a sense of false security and kept making words come out of my mouth, despite telling myself to think before speaking only mere seconds ago. "It's practically orange when I wanted a bluey red!"

"Look, it's got the same beading on the bodice," I enthused eagerly. "Same gathers, even has the pleating detail at the back. It's Number Seven in the LookBook – I'll show you."

"Are you arguing with me?" Each word was an ice cube tumbling down my back and I couldn't help the fact that I shivered. "I just wanted to be clear, because after two decades in fashion, I think I know the difference between crimson and scarlet."

"I'm not saying you're wrong," I clarified quickly, when actually I should have just shut the fuck up. "Just that the dress photographs a different colour, and if you let me get the LookBook..."

I had been one nanosecond away from rummaging on the counter for the right brochure, only to be stopped in my tracks by a box of costume jewellery flying through the air. I just had time to think that Heidi normally had too much respect for Kenneth J Lane to use any of his pieces as projectile missiles, and then I'd ducked.

It was too late. Damn my brain. A chunky ring had glanced off the bridge of my nose and a bracelet narrowly missed my right eye, but a turquoise, tendrilly necklace hit me square on the cheek. The sharp edges of the strands whipped and scratched enough to surprise a squeaked, "fuck!" out of me as the necklace clattered to the floor in several pieces.

Heidi had the decency to look ever so slightly shocked as I clutched my cheek and felt something wet coat my fingers. Heidi might have looked even more shocked if she hadn't had her biannual Botox a week before. "Oh, don't look at me like that. It barely touched you," she said in a voice that wasn't quite so filled with loathing. "I really can't deal with you right now, Bella." She stalked out and left me staring in dismay at my bleeding face in the mirror. It wasn't a gushing wound that required stitches but it still counted as actual maiming.

"Shit! Are you alright?"

I turned to see Cassandra standing in the doorway with a gratifyingly horrified expression on her face.

"It doesn't matter what kind of bloody red that dress is. She'll get one of the art team to Photoshop it anyway."

"I know, I know." Cassandra was alright when the rest of the fashion team weren't around. She gave me a quick, surreptitious hug. "You know Heidi really gets her bitch on when she's shooting."

"God, I always have to open my big mouth and make a bad situation even worse," I lamented. "And now I'll have to call the press office and tell them that we've damaged some of the jewellery."

"Actually, Bella, I think you'd better stay out of Heidi's way for at least an hour," Cassandra advised. She rummaged through the debris on the counter top. "Look, take my ciggies and make yourself invisible for a while. I'll get Becky to talk Heidi around. I think she's got some more Xanax."

And so there I was, lying on the roof with gravel digging into my back as I tried to remember how to blow smoke rings. I wasn't going to be allowed to watch the shoot now, which sucked. Sometimes I thought it was the only part of the job I liked, apart from the clothes, which never argued back.

I loved standing on the sidelines, watching the nuts and bolts of the production – the ornate sets they built which were usually held together with staples and sticky tape, the models seamlessly switching poses in clothes that I'd painstakingly steamed and pressed, the photographer seeing something extraordinary through the camera lense that wasn't apparent to anyone else. It all seemed like a lot of effort for not very much, but then I would sneak a look at the Polaroids and there would be this fantasy, fairytale world of beautiful girls in beautiful outfits. And I'd remember why I was sticking this out; so far down on the fashion food chain that I wasn't even an amoeba – maybe just the waste product of an amoeba. But one day, if I was really good and managed to get out from under Heidi's Prada jackboot, I'd be the one who made the fairytales happen. The one who got to sprinkle magic dust over the whole mind-numbing process. Who'd create these inviolate, unworldly images so that girls like I'd used to be would rip out the magazine pages and stick them on their suburban bedroom walls and to hell with the Blu-Tack stains.

I drifted back from my very favourite daydream, the one where I shot couture at a Roller Derby, to find my phone ringing. If it was Heidi or someone else from downstairs bitching about anything, I was going to order a bottle of Valium and some razor blades on room service when I got back to the hotel, and expenses be damned.

I grabbed for it one-handed, not bothering to check the display because I was that pissed off at being interrupted. "What?"

There was a startled cough which didn't sound very feminine. "Bella? It's Edward."

I sat up as my mood went from dejected to excited to nervous and back to excited in nanoseconds. My head was spinning uncontrollably. "Oh! Hey! Hi! How are you?"

"All the better for you sounding so pleased to hear from me."

I lay back down on the gravel and turned on my side, so I could roll my eyes more effectively without sun glare. Yet again the thought that I really had to start engaging my brain cells before I opened my mouth fluttered into my mind. "Been to any good gallery openings?"

"One or two good and several very bad ones. Talking of which, are you free tomorrow night?"

"Hang on," I mumbled so I could light another cigarette and not check my schedule. "What's happening tomorrow night?"

"You owe me a drink and then I'm going to take you to dinner," Edward said smoothly. "Maybe Paris – I'm not too sure what I'm in the mood for right now."

I didn't want to be so impressed, but I so was. It was infuriating.

"But first, there's an exhibition opening. It will probably be dull as mud, but that can't be helped."

There was another pause because for the life of me, I didn't know how to respond. This kind of situation had never come up before and I didn't have a clue as to how I was supposed to act, or what I should say.

"So, Bella, how's your diary looking?"

I made some rapid calculations. A friend of a friend's boyfriend was DJ-ing at a bar in Williamsburg, which meant no free food and one watered down drink if I was lucky. And Edward was offering me dinner if I bought him a drink, which seemed a hell of a lot better than my other option. "Well, maybe I could shift a couple of things around," I hedged, because I didn't want to sound too eager.

"Good, I'll pick you up at eight," Edward said. "It would be helpful to know where you're staying."

Something was seriously wrong when I couldn't muster a snappy comeback. "Soho Grand," I answered dully. "You know, I could just say thank you for the bag and then we wouldn't have to-"

"I'll see you tomorrow then."

Half an hour later when I was enjoying my enforced exile to the dressing room and silently contemplating the chipped polish on my big toe, I realised he hadn't even waited for me to say yes.

~*~*

Yesterday, the cut on my cheek had simply been an angry red mark, but during the night it had scabbed over nicely. The thing that made it the best wound in the history of work-related accidents was the look of horror on Heidi's face the next morning as she stared at it in all its crusty glory.

"I just wanted to thank you for all your hard work this week," she said carefully, both eyes fixed firmly on me as if she expected me to bolt at any loud noises. My ears were rejoicing. "You've really been a star."

Heidi was never going to apologise – she just didn't roll that way – but this was the closest she'd ever come and I was going to savour every moment of it.

"Just doing my job." I absent-mindedly reached up to prod at the cut with the tip of one finger and allowed myself one tiny, ouch-laden shudder. Anything else would have been overkill. "So, what dresses do you want for the first shoot?"

"Why don't we get Cassandra to do all the prep work and you can help me with the styling?" Heidi suggested, as she patted my shoulder without visibly wincing. "And I want you out of here no later than five tonight. You deserve some time off."

I had many hours to whip myself into a state of near-hysteria about spending the evening with Edward. The sheer giddy thrill of wining and fine dining had slowly ebbed away to be replaced with white-knuckled terror at the thought of Edward staring at me and making sarcastic remark after sarcastic remark while I babbled and burbled. Further on throughout the day, I had come to the happy conclusion that Heidi would have me slaving over a warm iron for the rest of the day and most of the night too, and I'd have no choice but to leave Edward an apologetic message and bail on him. Because assignations with arrogant older men were one thing when they led to Mulberry bags, but a dinner date was something else entirely – and who knew where that would lead. Nowhere good, of that I was absolutely positive.

However, Heidi was as good as her word and as the studio clock edged towards five, I was frogmarched out of the door by an indignant Cassandra.

"Heidi says you have to go now," she informed me sourly. "And I have to pack up all the returns. God, I wish she'd inflict GBH on me occasionally!"

I tried to keep the fear at bay as I swiped at my legs with a razor, while I lay up to my neck in some jasmine scented bubbles. At least I was getting a night out in New York instead of returning clothes to designers' ateliers until the only place that was open and that I could afford was a corner shop on Broadway where I'd buy a bag of Doritos and a jar of salsa dip for dinner. So why not get dressed up and have my first square meal in six days and get to see the bright lights of the big city in the company of an enigmatic and not-so-bad-looking man who probably didn't even look at the prices on the menu? Why the hell not? And just like that, I was excited all over again.

Half an hour later, I stepped back to stare down at my reflection in the mirror. My dress for the evening was a raspberry chiffon number from Mochino Cheap & Chick, which I'd 'borrowed' from the rail of shoot clothes in my room. It was a demure, polite frock in theory. But there was something special about designer dresses. It rippled down my body, skimmed politely over my tummy and clung gently to the curve of my hips in a way that was suggestive and promising. But not, repeat not, slutty.

Even the colour did wonders for my skin, transforming it from bed sheet white to the creamiest shade of porcelain. Or maybe it was just the lighting in the room. My hair was already pinned up with a handful of sparkly clips so I concentrated on applying a sweep of liquid eyeliner and some lip gloss that was exactly two shades darker than the dress. If I wore anything brighter, then Edward was bound to get the wrong idea.

But ultimately this me was just a reflection in a mirror. In reality, there was tit-tape sticking the bodice to my chest so I didn't flash my rather cheap but reliable bra at the wrong moment, while my feet were being crunched into a shape they weren't meant to go by my peep toe heels. It wasn't very feminist, but I fervently believed that a girl had to suffer to look this good.

The phone suddenly rang and my stomach slam-dunked at the prospect of what might happen in the next few hours, but as long as I kept it light and frothy and managed not to say anything stupid, what could possibly go wrong? I scooped phone, lip gloss and purse into my vintage clutch bag and at precisely one minute past eight, the lift doors chimed open and I stepped out into the lobby to find Edward waiting for me.


End file.
